Estate Wind

Minister of my manor, my estate;
the highrise and the tenement were meant for me
by birthright. I was priest and bishop,
sold solace by the ounce; wrote my likeness
in swirls up stairwells, portraits on walls,
in lifts. Tagged cars and the basement blocks,
the ground itself, train and truck. None could
know to go without my say-so. All dollies with babies,
men in day jobs, night work,
mine.

But it came to pass graffiti began to seem
just gross; how it all meant nothing to no one.
And the end came quicker day by day,
sending messages hourly, saying, Silence.
Stop.
Blank.

I’d turned my manor to a wasteland;
worst as best. People tried to climb out;
I pulled them back, so’s not to be alone
with the wreckage I’d made. I could not
break out of my own cage, watched as the bones
of my hands could keep nothing held, the holes
in my skull hear, see, know, nothing. All this was
my worse. The emptiness I had made, mine
for always.

The Liverpool Care Pathway: Modern Ways of Death

The following blog many will find distressing. Be Warned.

The Liverpool Care Pathway was a palliative care package for the dying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Care_Pathway_for_the_Dying_Patient

It could be said that each procedure has its own identifying image.
For the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), it would be the butterfly syringe.

The ‘body’ of the syringe is one main inlet to the patient, while each ‘wing’ has portals for other drips etc to be attached simultaneously. This allows many drugs to be administered at the same time, and continuously.

Once the butterfly syringe has been applied, however, then the person is ushered into the ‘ways of dying’. No food or water is given, a coma induced, and the patient monitored, usually visually, for signs of pain, and then the necessary drug given.
The whole aim is to create the conditions for an assisted but relatively less distressing slide into death.
Once inserted there is no going back, and no stopping: the procedure is taken through to the end, the person’s death.

The main decisions to do with the Pathway are the decisions of usually experienced nursing staff etc.
Mistakes can be, and have been, made. Where  visual assessment of someone’s condition is crucial, it is relatively open to misjudgement: how do you distinguish ‘agitation’, from ‘pain,’ or even distress? For the former the patient is merely monitored, for the latter,   measures are taken.
It has been found that in some cases that people haven continued living ten to twelve days after the pathway was initiated.
To go without food or water for this period, even though the person was comatose, would have produced agonising pains as the basic levels of the body fought.

And so the Liverpool Care Pathway was discontinued.

What has taken its place, however, is a procedure so similar it is easy to confuse the two: is it just the name has changed?

To sit with the dying under normal conditions is terrible enough (a doctor said, ‘Do not die in hospital!’ The noise and lack of privacy take away all dignity.)
But to sit with the dying, knowing that you have agreed to the intrusive procedure being administered… that is on another level.

And so we see a surge in applicants to Dignitas. Dignitas may seem a very antiseptic, clinical, mess-free alternative, but it does allow a person a measure of choice.
The heartbreak, naturally, comes with it.

Religion, it will be noticed, plays no part whatsoever in these procedures.
The Last Rites are administered, as normal, and prayers said, but afterlife considerations play no part in the decision-making.

Let’s face it, folks, our hearts are going to get broken, no matter which way is taken/chosen.

 

Oh, and never agree to have one’s loved one embalmed.

On ‘The Monk’s Tale,’ from Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’

from GIFTS OF RINGS AND GOLD, by Michael Murray
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gifts-Rings-Gold-Introduction-Ring-composition-ebook/dp/B01IRPODPW

 

The Monk’s Tale contains seventeen out of, we are told, a hundred possible tales, of fall from fortune. All were falls from high estate, and the fall was cataclysmic for all: humiliation, death, and punishment by God. The tales range from Old Testament Lucifer and Adam, through classical, to historical figures; we find figures from Dante in (H)Ugolina. It has been speculated that the Monk’s tale was in part a satire on a similar work by Boccaccio.

Some of the tales: Adam, Samson, Hercules, Zenobia and Holofernes, reflected the Canterbury Tales’ seventh fragment’s concern with the role of women in society, and of the danger of acquiescence to their rule. Pride, ambition, disobedience, treachery and committing one’s secrets into unsafe hands (ie those of women) all figure here. All these themes were reflected in the other Tales of the Seventh Fragment. But they are on such general and widely known subjects, as the Christian lists of sins and vices, that they are bound to figure prominently.

Is there a structure to the Tale?
We need to think as an audience.

The seventeen tales fall into three distinct groups, with four variations.
The first are biblical figures, then we have a central four historical figures, and lastly classical figures.
This is a clear and intended arrangement. We need to know if it is a purely rhetorical arrangement, or whether it has some other function.
The four exceptions are the classical tale of Hercules (tale four) amongst the biblical, and of Zenobia, tale seven, also a classical tale amongst the biblical; and the tale of Holofernes, a biblical amongst the classical, tale thirteen, and Antiochus Epiphanes, tale fourteen, another biblical figure amongst the classical.
Do the positions of these four tell us anything about structural concerns of the Tale?
The Hercules tale follows immediately the Samson tale, and reiterates the untrustworthiness of women. The tale of Zenobia on the other hand is the tale of a strong woman of noble birth, one who chose when to bear children, and what the relationship with the father should be. Her fate for not following the traditional ‘office of wommen’ was one of utter humiliation, by Roman Emperor Aurelian.

Then we see the tales of Holofernes and Antiochus together. Holofernes follows the storyline of Nebuchadnezzar and Balthasar from the biblical half of the Tale; it is pertinent to the structure that he was killed by a woman, Judith. Antiochus in the latter half was a warrior general whose abuse of the Jewish people was punished by a series of increasingly terrible illnesses that corrupted him bodily.
The tales are generally lengthy, and the latter especially very colourful.

The four central historical tales provide the transit from predominantly biblical characters, to classical. This is illustrated in the sources of fall they record: we see the brother of King Pedro turn against him; the vassal lords of King Petro of Cyprus turn on him; the son-in-law of Barnardo de Lumbardie throw him into prison; the terrible turn-around of fortunes of imprisoned (H)Ugolino and sons, whose sons offer themselves up to him as sustenance.

Immediately following these is the Tale of Nero, and how the people of Rome turned against him and hunted him down. Whilst, before this central four is the Tale of Zenobia, fearless and triumphant warrior hunted down then humbled and paraded through Rome by Emperor Aurelian.

The opposing parallels of this Tale are pertinent: we see
Zenobia paralleled with Nero;
Balshasar with Holofernes;
Nebuchadnezzar with Antiochus;
Hercules with Alexander;
Samson with Julius Caesar, and
Adam with Croesus.

As has been noticed the Holofernes tale refers to both the Nebuchadnezzar and Balthasar tales: it is appropriate it finds its parallels there. Nebuchadnezzar, a Babylonian king we are told twice defeated Jerusalem; here we see the link between the two: defeat of the Jewish people and nation. Both were punished severely.
For the Monk it seems the Jewish people were still sacrosanct.

Do they form a chiasmus? I would argue that yes, they do, based on paralleling and antithetical structuring.
They have no ring, though, with beginning, middle and end devices. It can be seen that there is no central tale, nor interruption by the Host or other listeners. We have the introduction to the tale, and the rush to cut off further doom-laden tales at the end, but no essential middle turn.

 

Book Review: Scotland’s Merlin, by Tim Clarkson

Scotland’s Merlin, A Medieval Legend and Its Dark Age Origins, by Tim Clarkson. Published by John Donald, of the Birlinn Limited imprint, 2016.
ISBN 97819065669991

This is a meticulously researched and even-handed investigation of the Merlin phenomenon.

Our story comes from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s book, Historia Regius Brittania, AD 1139. The Merlin and also Arthurian topics were based on early Welsh sources.Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Arthurian characters were then transformed through the French chanson de geste. Their Vulgate Cycle became a magnificent and expanding series of tales around King Arthur, his court, and chivalry, and all in a British (southern) setting.
Geoffrey of Monmouth first published a collection, Phophetiae Merlini, in AD 1130.

Geoffrey of Monmouth’s main book mentioned Merlin only marginally. He later dedicated a whole tale to his story, Vita Merlini. This tale was not as popular as the earlier book; the tale was set in southern Scotland.
Sources used the name Myrddin Wyllt, for this figure. It was this Welsh form, Myrddin, that supposedly gave the name to Carmarthen, in south Wales: Caer Myrrddin ie the castle of Myrddin.
The Merlin story also occured in earlier Irish sources.

The Scottish Merlin story dates from the 6th century AD, where the Merlin character, known as Lailoken,  runs maddened from the carnage of the battle of Arfderdd (AD 573). He lived in the forests and woods of Celibon in southern Scotland as a madman, spouting prophecies. His sister persuaded the king to help her find him and bring him back. His prophecies became famous. He later returned to the woods.

The source this Scottish tale drew upon was the St Kentigern tale of Lailoken, the madman in the woods. Connected with this tale is the 9/10 century Irish King Sweeney/Suibhne tale. Once again there is the warrior running maddened from the battle, but this time through being cursed by St Ronan. He was a prince/chieftain. There are two very moving episodes where his wife contacted him, to bring him back into the world of people. The first one Sweeney turned away from her; the second time he turned to her, but she had turned from him thinking him beyond help.
Sweeney met Lailoken, who was called Alladhan in the tale, on his sojourn in Britain. The region is identified as the south Strathclyde region.

The prophecies, Tim Clarkson, notes, were back-referenced: writers gave historical accounts of the figure, then fitted prophecies to past events (mostly AD 12th century local events).
The supernatural element to the story is an essential part, however.
The later Thomas the Rhymer legend took over a lot of the Lailoken characteristics.

The major researcher of the Merlin story was the Victorian scholar, William Forbes Skene. He went so far as to identify the site of Lailoken’s immediate locale, and supposed grave. He visited the most likely place for the tumultuous battle of Arfderydd, and identified from scattered sources the major figures of the battle.

The name can be traced back:
Merlin
Myrddin Wyllt (Myrddin the mad)
(Alladhan – Irish through the Dal Riata cultural and settlement connection)
Lailoken
Llallogan (Cumbric language)

2
What we now know of the Merlin story seems to be the remnants of a much older and more complex one.
Merlin, the wizard and prophet, was confidante of King Arthur. In old age he was lured away into the woods by Morgana La Fay/Vivian and imprisoned within a tree/cave.

It is always these three, though: the man who runs mad in the woods, the king/chief who he was close to, and the woman who is wife, sister, or lover.

There was something niggling me about framework of this tale. What did it remind me of?
It was the Gilgamesh story, all the way from 1800BCE, and what is now Iraq. Gilgamesh and his companion the wild man, Enkidu.

Tim Clarkson notes the similarity of basic theme, but not the three-person structure.

Enkidu was lured from his wild life and into Uruk with Gilgamesh, by the temple ‘prostitute’ Shamesh. On Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh himself went wandering in Enkidu’s wilderness. He did not begin to prophesy, but he did go to seek out immortality. Already part god, he sought out the only survivor of the Flood to learn the secret of not-dying. He had to seek admittance from Siduri, the keeper of the tavern at the end of the world, to the domicile of the one survivor.
She allowed him through, but it was refused him.
One version has Gilgamesh later become a king of the Underworld, lord of the dead.

The Gilgamesh tale hinges on the roles of women: Enkidu accented to Shamhat; Gilgamesh refused the advances of love goddess Ishtar. That refusal cost him Enkidu, his state of mind, and his city of Uruk.
Gilgamesh spurned Ishtar’s advances; he sought out Siduri.

Contemporary with this tale is a tale from the Middle Egyptian period, The Tale of Sinuhe.
In this tale Sinuhe was returning from fighting in North Africa with the king’s son and their army. He overheard a messenger to the king’s son telling of the death of the king. The news caused him to lose his mind, and he wandered off. He wandered ‘like a rudderless barge’ and eventually ended up as warrior to a chieftain in what became Syria/Lebanon. Eventually he recontacted the new king, and was welcomed back to Egypt having won new territories for the king.
There is no prophesying, or seeking wisdom or secrets.

There are aspects of the tale, however, that suggest his wanderings as a vision of the realm of the dead, a traverse through the Underworld. He ‘comes forth by day’ back in Egypt of the semi-divine ruler, the new king.

 

How far can we take this?

Think of the Buddha in 5thBCE India: a prince who wanders off with other ascetics into the wilds. An extreme ascetic, he eventually accepted a bowl of food from a woman: In a famous incident, after becoming starved and weakened, he is said to have accepted milk and rice from a village girl named Sujata. Such was his emaciated appearance that she wrongly believed him to be a spirit that had granted her a wish.
He realised from this that extreme fasting was not the way, that there had to be a Middle Way – he went on to develop his Middle Way, and with followers.
Think of Jesus of Nazareth, once again in the wilderness, and preaching, praying. Think of his relationship with both Herod, and indeed, God. And think of the relationship with Mary Magdalen. Think of him spurning Satan in the wilderness.

Did both of these life stories purposely use the older tale of the madman/holy fool/seeker of mysteries in the wildness?

Ok, maybe the Jesus one is stretching it. But Wiki does give us this:

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_man):
The description of Nebuchadnezzar II in the Book of Daniel (2nd century BC) greatly influenced the medieval European concepts. Daniel 4 depicts God humbling the Babylonian king for his boastfulness; stricken mad and ejected from human society, he grows hair on his body and lives like a beast. This image was popular in medieval depictions of Nebuchadnezzar. Similarly, late medieval legends of Saint John Chrysostom (died 407) describe the saint’s asceticism as making him so isolated and feral that hunters who capture him cannot tell if he is man or beast.

And, of course, Esau was an hairy man.

In the Greek world the figure of Heracles seems closest to the wild man in the woods. He does seem to have similarities in some respects to the earlier Enkidu figure.
The Roman world gives us Silvanus – although, as protector of woods, there is an echo here of the role of Humbaba, the cedar wood ogre of the Gilgamesh tale.

There are copious examples of ‘wild man’ tales – some become blended with other tales: Robin Hood, maybe even Hereward the Wake fits here. Think of William Tell. The madman element is essential, though, and these tales seem to omit that.

Where, if at all, does the Green Man figure fit into the story? He is more like the Roman Silvanus. Maybe that was the source of the Green Man legend: left-overs once again of Roman occupation, or even of Romans who stayed on after the dissolution.

What was it about the Lailoken tale that made it so memorable, though? There must have been many driven mad by battle over the centuries.
Was it the St Kentigern connection, hagiographic reverence, and the huge trade in Saint’s stories?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

/8 the tribal chief, and the wife/sister/lover?